Evil Eye
by CheshireCatwoman
Summary: Why does Xigbar wear an eye patch? What happened to his eye? Two similar but very different questions, as Roxas finds out. And what does this have to do with Saix's hair? Oneshot.


I don't own KH. I also don't own The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe does. The stuff in bold is taken directly from the Tell-Tale Heart.

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One day, Roxas was making a snack in the kitchen, wondering about some of the mysteries of the Organization. What kind of experiments did Vexen _really_ perform? Why was Saix's hair blue? Is it true that Xaldin's sideburns have a life of their own? Can Marluxia talk to plants? As he was going through some of these questions, the greatest mystery of all invaded his mind – why does Xigbar wear an eye patch? His thoughts were interrupted as the man himself strode in on the ceiling. He jumped, not expecting the very person he was thinking about to come into view. Xigbar jumped off the ceiling and landed on the floor. He greeted Roxas with a "Hey, kid" as he started rummaging through the refrigerator. Roxas, having nothing better to do, and wondering what would happen if he asked (he had never heard anyone else even consider asking), he decided to try it. After all, Xigbar couldn't do anything _too_ bad to him, or else Xemnas would turn him into a dusk. Right? Right. Roxas took a deep breath and asked the question.

"Hey, Xigbar?"

"Yeah?" he replied, still rummaging through the fridge.

"Um, I got a question…" he said awkwardly.

"Fire away, little dude!"

"Why do you wear an eyepatch?"

Xigbar froze on the spot. He slowly straightened up, closed the door and looked at the ceiling with his one good eye. "You know kid, you're the first person to ask me that question."

Roxas jumped. He couldn't believe what he was hearing! There had to have been other Organization members who asked, or at least wondered…right? "Wait…what?"

Xigbar looked at him and smiled. "Everyone else asks, 'what happened to your eye?' But Roxas, you are the first one to ask 'why do you wear an eye patch?' As alike as they sound, those are two very different questions, both with very different answers. But I'm willing to answer _your_ question," he said as he sat on a stool across the counter from the neophyte.

Roxas started to regret having asked, but he couldn't exactly get out of the situation now.

"Wow. Ok, go ahead."

"Well, it all started just before Saix joined the Organization-"

"Kingdom Hearts, that can't be good. You losing your eye has to do with Saix?" Roxas said as he put a hand to his forehead. And for the second time that day, the aforementioned nobody walked in the kitchen.

"Guh-" Roxas jumped. He seriously hoped Saix hadn't heard that part.

"Oh, hey Saix," Xigbar started fearlessly, "I was just starting to explain to Roxas why I wear an eyepatch."

Saix looked at Xigbar with the same unreadable face he always wore. "You mean you're going to tell him why you wear an eyepatch, and not what happened to your eye in the first place?"

"Yes, I am," Xigbar said with a mischievous grin.

Saix sighed. "I suppose I can't stop you," he said as he sat next to Xigbar, across from Roxas. He knew that Xigbar was going to talk about him, and he wanted to know what he said.

What was with these two? What was the difference between two ridiculously similar questions? Roxas had no idea how Xigbar's wearing an eyepatch had nothing to do with him losing an eye. He didn't comment on the absurdity of it all, he just let the Freeshooter continue. This had better be good.

"Back before Saix became a nobody, he had the misfortune of crossing paths with me," he started, smiling wickedly at Saix, then at Roxas.

Saix decided to give his input. "Back when I had a heart **I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye. Yes, it was this. One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture. A pale, blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold. And so, by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.**"

Roxas stared at the two, wide eyed and open mouthed. Saix continued.

"**Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing? But you should've seen _me_! You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.** Unfortunately, I merely thought I killed him. Little did I know the man had a certain condition that wouldn't allow his death to be so simple," he said, his arms waving as his face exposed a hint of the insanity that lay under his stoic exterior.

"**And every night about midnight I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern all closed, closed so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this? And then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously -- oh, so cautiously -- cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven**, Roxas, seven, as that number would follow me into this cursed Organization, seven **long nights, every night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.**

"**But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of** what I thought was his **heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder, every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! -- do you mark me well? And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me -- the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once -- once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length** that hideous pulsating **ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.**

"Just when I thought I'd never have to endure the vision of that abomination ever again, his eye flickered open and glared through the windows to my soul. He rose up and stared at me as I froze in fear, crouched on the floor. He didn't have a heartbeat – I was sure of it! How could he be alive without a heartbeat?! Then I realized that it wasn't his heart that gave that ungodly tremor, it was his eye! Yes, that was it, his hellish eye! He gave a triumphant laugh as creatures I had never seen before came out of the walls, out of the floor, and swarmed me. They crawled over my body, searching for something. Amidst the clamor of all of this madness, I could only look with pain and fear at the grinning man as he watched me die. I saw the moon reflecting off his sick, pulsating, unnaturally large eyeball, the blue eye with a film over it, as I felt my own beating heart rip from my body.

"Did he even have a heart?

"I found out later that cruel irony had set in as I found my hair to be the same shade of blue as Xigbar's eye. And that, my young neophyte, is why Xigbar wears an eyepatch now. To go about parading that monstrosity would be a disaster."

Roxas just stared at Saix completely dumbfounded. Then he looked at Xigbar, then back at Saix, then back at Xigbar, then at the eye patch.

"Heh, wanna see it Roxas?" Xigbar laughed and gave an interested glance at Saix.

Saix looked at Xigbar with _Oh dear sweet Kingdom Hearts was that FEAR?! _in his eyes. "No, Xigbar, anything but that! You know what that does to me!"

Roxas was dumbfounded. He wanted to see it, being the curious nobody he was, but he didn't want Saix to go into one of his...moods. "Um..." he started, staring at the eyepatch.

"Heh heh, you know you want to see it," the Freeshooter said, toying with it just to watch Saix squirm.

"Xigbar, don't!" yelled Saix as he felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle, marking the first sign of his berserker mode. He jumped up and a glint of madness was shimmering in his glazed eyes.

Xigbar flipped up his eyepatch and Roxas was in awe of its terror. It was the exact same shade as Saix's hair and did, in fact, have an unnatural film over it. It had bloodshot veins lining it like spiderwebs and the whole of it seemed to be throbbing like the hearts they yearned for. Pounding. Pulsating. And to make it worse, the light from Kingdom Hearts shone in on it, giving it an eerie, moonlit glow. It contrasted sharply with his other yellow eye.

Saix looked away but still heard it pulsing. _The damned thing has a pulse, like a..._he couldn't even bring the word up in his own mind. He looked everywhere but at the eye, his own eyes wide but soulless. All logic and reason were gone; it wasn't like he could just close his eyes or leave the room. He couldn't stay in control any longer. He looked at it, that _thing_ that forced him into losing his heart and becoming a nobody, that _thing _that cursed him and put him in this present state that was a mockery of life and death. He was nothing. And that eyeball was a reminder of all that he went through.

Saix may not have truly existed, but that Evil Eye fueled one of his greatest berserker rages in the history of the Organization. And contrary to popular belief, it was extremely rare for him to be berserk outside of battle. He wasn't one to be easily disturbed. In fact, this was the first time Roxas actually saw him do it; he had only heard the horror stories from the other members.

What made it one of his greatest berserker rages was the fact that the eye didn't trigger anger or rage nearly as much as sheer insanity. Saix transformed from a stoic, responsible member of the Organization into a homicidal madman with one glance of the Evil Eye, the eye that resonated with the deepest levels of his soul.

Saix lost all control and lunged for Xigbar with a fury to end all furies. Xigbar dropped his eyepatch to the floor, noting that this hadn't been one of his better decisions.

"NO, SAIX! DOWN, BOY!" yelled Xigbar as he dodged the incapacitated diviner.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time Saix was done, an entire half of the castle had been destroyed. Needless to say, Xigbar's warping ability saved his unlife several times. It took the entire Organization to take Saix down. It finally took one of Xemnas' aerial blades to render the diviner unconscious.

"So _that's_ what he's like," remarked Larxene as the electricity around her hands faded. She had never seen him Berserk either; like Roxas, she had only heard stories. "What happened?"

Xemnas looked at the pitiful sight before him and dismissed his weapons. His Organization was bleeding all over each other, and bits and pieces of flesh and debris were scattered all over the battlefield. Amidst the mess, he found a stray eyepatch, and then he knew.

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Inspired by the song Ol' Evil Eye by ICP, but when I read the story I found that Saix is much more like the character of Poe's work than the song. I encourage you to read the original work, it's a masterpiece. 

Why was Xigbar in that house in the first place? Maybe I'll make fic about it, if I get enough reviews...


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